As regular readers of these columns know, I really like chatting with new-to-me artists and when one comes along thatās Maine-based, well, thatās just icing on the cake. Such is the case with this weekās featured performer: Ethan Setiawan, who is releasing a new album soon that takes his instrument of choice, the mandolin, to unexpected places, musically speaking. I was contacted by his publicist about the show and was sent a link to this new album āGambit.ā Once I listened to it, I was wanted to see if this young musician was up for a conversation. He was, and when he called I got right into what I had heard on that link.
Q: Iāve got to admit that listening to āGambitā brought back so many memories of my working with the Windham Hill Records artists, especially Darol Anger and Mike Marshall.
Setiawan: Right, totally.
Q: When I saw that Darol had produced it, that immediately grabbed my attention, and Iām sure I heard him performing on the tracks, as well.
Setiawan: Yeah, heās on the whole record. We did it at the studio here in western Maine, the Great North Sound Society, and he was in the control room with a microphone playing on it, pressing ārecord,ā and producing the project; yeah, it was great.
Q: Now the show thatās coming up at One Longfellow Square, is it a CD-release party?
Setiawan: It is, yeah, and Darolās on the gig along with a bunch of other Portland and Boston folks.
Q: Oh, so this is going to be a full-band show. How many of them were involved with the new album?
Setiawan: Actually, just Darol and myself, the others are great players all, but I wasnāt able to get the original band, so to speak.
Q: I recognized quite a few of the names listed there, so Iām sure they have commitments of their own, performance-wise.
Setiawan: Yeah, exactly.
Q: So have you played at One Longfellow Square before?
Setiawan: Yeah, Iām kind of a newer addition to the Portland, Maine, scene, but my band, Corner House, played there last year. You probably know the mandolin player, Joe K. Walsh out of Portland?
Q: Iām familiar with the name, but Iāve never met him.
Setiawan: Well, he put together sort of a review of the whole scene last spring, which is actually happening again this year that Iāll be at. But, yeah, Iāve been on that stage a couple of times, and what a great resource it is to have for musicians in the community at large there in southern Maine.
Q: Itās such an intimate venue, as well, and thereās not a bad seat in the house.
Setiawan: Yeah, absolutely!
Q: How far afield do you get when you tour?
Setiawan: Iām not putting a whole lot of energy into touring this project. Iām just putting the record out and doing a couple of shows like that Longfellow show. But I just got back from about three weeks on the West Coast with my band, Corner House. I get all around New England with that project and various others as the need arises.
Q: Now, just out of curiosity, where are you calling from, a booth in the Midwest, perchance?
Setiawan: (Chuckle) Iām calling from Cornish, Maine. I live here in Cornish. I kind of say Iām based in Portland because nobody knows where Cornish is.
Q: So how long have you and the mandolin been making music together?
Setiawan: I started playing mandolin when I was 13, almost 13 years ago, you do the math (chuckle), and before that I played cello. But I was interested in playing something with frets, something maybe that had a pick, although Iāve tried banjo, ukulele and mountain dulcimer. Iāve played a couple of things in my early teens there, but the mandolin is kind of the one that stuck, for whatever reason.
Q: It has got a wonderful, delicate sound, but it still can make you sit up and take notice, if you know what I mean.
Setiawan: Yeah, totally! Thereās a wide range of emotion and character that one can get through the mandolin.
Q: What number album is āGambitā in your discography?
Setiawan: I would say itās sort of my second solo record. Iāve put out a little EP of tunes a long time ago, and Iāve put out a live record of a bunch of tunes from my first record. āGambitā is the second studio record that Iāve done under my own name.
Q: Now that hasnāt come out yet, right?
Setiawan: No, it comes out kind of immediately after the release weekend gigs, the release date is March 31.
Q: So asking you about what kind of response youāve been getting is a moot point, then.
Setiawan: (Laughter) Youāre right, thus far itās a little hard to say.
Q: But like I said earlier, it really brings back those Windham Hill days in a rush, and thatās always a nice thing to revisit.
Setiawan: Yeah, I love that stuff, and I love working and playing with Darol, of course, and I kind of had this batch of tunes that it made sense to work with him on.
Q: Does it take you a long time to get your music written? are you writing constantly, I suppose I could ask.
Setiawan: I try to make a practice out of it, but I would say that I try to sit down and write something once or twice a week. And it kind of goes in spurts. There are some months, or periods of months, where Iām writing a lot, where every time I sit down to play it just ends up being a writing session.
Q: How about the tunes on your soon-to-be released album?
Setiawan: The tunes on āGambitā span a pretty wide number of years. I think the earliest thing on there is from 2017, and I tracked the record in 2020. I was writing pretty much right up to the recording session.
Q: And what is your assessment of āGambitā as a finished project?
Setiawan: After recording it and getting the sequence together that makes sense to me, Iām really loving how everything has coalesced for this record.
Q: Now, is there anything, Ethan that youād like me to pass on to the folks reading this article?
Setiawan: Umm, yeah, come out to Longfellow, come see a show. And for the mandolinists out there, Iāve printed books for all the tunes in āGambit,ā so I have books that have just regular notations and then mandolin-specific notation for all the tunes. Folks can pick up a CD or a record. I printed vinyl for the first time. Iāve never printed my music on vinyl before, so Iāve got that for this record, so Iām really excited about that.
Lucky Clark, a 2018 āKeeping the Blues Aliveā Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.
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